The present invention relates to a modular plug as currently used on communications and data transmission cables.
Modular plugs have become quite popular for use on telephone cords and other communications cables and are well accepted throughout the industry. Such a plug is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,954,320, which is hereby incorporated by reference. These plugs are generally designed for use with flat cable. A portion of the jacket is stripped away, leaving the individual insulated conductors aligned for reception in troughs in the floor of a cavity in the plug and thus aligned for termination with insulation piercing terminals aligned above the troughs. An anchoring member is then locked in place on the cable jacket to provide strain relief for the terminations. This arrangement does not allow for varying the orientation of the conductors vis-a-vis the terminals.
Often it is desirable to use such a plug with a round multiconductor cable, but this presents several problems. A round, jacketed cable will not fit in the cavity profiled for reception of a flat cable and allow room for latching the anchoring member as well. Removing the cable jacket from the portion to be inserted in the cavity leaves too much clearance for the anchoring member to compress the conductors to provide strain relief, and further leaves such a long length of free conductors that it is difficult to align them with the troughs under the terminals.